Advanced Search 
Still Life with Three Skulls
Max Beckmann (German, 1884–1950)
1945
Medium/Technique
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
55.2 x 89.5 cm (21 3/4 x 35 1/4 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Mrs. Culver Orswell
Accession Number67.984
CollectionsEurope
ClassificationsPaintings
Beckmann fled Germany in 1937, after the Nazis seized 500 of his paintings and derided them as “degenerate art”. Unable to get a U.S. visa, he spent the war years in Amsterdam, where he experienced a “truly grotesque time, full to the brim with work, Nazi persecutions, bombs, hunger.” Beckmann painted this tabletop scene during the final months of the war in the tradition of a vanitas still life, using objects—skulls, playing cards, an extinguished candle—to symbolize the transience of life. In 1947, Perry Rathbone (then director of the St. Loui Art Museum, and later at the MFA) invited Beckmann to come to the U.S. for a teaching position in St. Louis.
InscriptionsLower right: beckmann / A 45.
ProvenanceMay 29, 1945, sold by the artist to Paul Cassirer and Co., Amsterdam [see note 1]; September 10, 1946, sold by Cassirer to Curt Valentin; November 19, 1946, sold by Valentin to Lois (Mrs. Culver) Orswell, Pomfret Center, CT [see note 2]; 1967, gift of Mrs. Culver Orswell to the MFA. (Accession Date: November 8, 1967)
NOTES:
[1] According to a letter from a representative of Paul Cassirer to the MFA (May 9, 1968). Jan Fontein, former MFA director, wrote to Theodore Stebbins of the MFA (October 12, 1994) that it may have been Cassirer's agent, Helmuth Luetjens, who was responsible for the purchase. Luetjens knew Beckmann during the war. [2] According to a letter from Mrs. Culver Orswell (1968).
NOTES:
[1] According to a letter from a representative of Paul Cassirer to the MFA (May 9, 1968). Jan Fontein, former MFA director, wrote to Theodore Stebbins of the MFA (October 12, 1994) that it may have been Cassirer's agent, Helmuth Luetjens, who was responsible for the purchase. Luetjens knew Beckmann during the war. [2] According to a letter from Mrs. Culver Orswell (1968).